


Yawn

by AlasPoorYorcake



Series: Culture Crash [3]
Category: LazyTown
Genre: An Exorbitant Amount Of Yawning, Define: Revising, Disgruntled Fae, Drabble, Explicit Descriptions Of Yawning, Gen, M/M, Panicked Elves, This One Is Definitely Gayer, Well-Deserved Irony, it gets gayer as it goes on, slight crack
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-18
Updated: 2017-11-18
Packaged: 2019-02-03 20:24:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,185
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12755571
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlasPoorYorcake/pseuds/AlasPoorYorcake
Summary: One yawn, two yawn, I yawn, you yawn. Robbie explores incorporating yawning into his plots. It ends about as well for him as in every other episode in the series.





	Yawn

**Author's Note:**

> This one is slightly crack-ier than the other two so far; I can guarantee it will not be the crackiest in the series. No excuse, minimum revision, and a looming feeling that I will regret this for the rest of my life. Business as usual. Also- related to the fic: this is not set in the same universe/time/place as Hostilities, but if you wanted to stick it before Purr, no one would really object.
> 
> Disclaimer: I don't own LazyTown. Puppets give me nightmares. That one episode where Robbie pretends to be a puppet? Mm-mm, nope, nuh-uh, didn't sleep for days.
> 
> Disclaimer #2: I'm not responsible for any unnecessary yawns done by you or other onlookers. I'm not paying damages, I won't let you sue me, and I'm not letting you take away my property, dammit!

* * *

The phrase  _ greatest weakness _ is a disgusting overgeneralization used by mediocre simpletons unable to realize the concept of true villainy.

_ True _ villainy was seeking out  _ any and all _ weaknesses and exploiting them  _ simultaneously _ .

In short, Robbie was angry. Angry, because he had invested so much time, so much work, into getting rid of that tumbling Sporta-flop, and where had it gotten him?

“‘Sugar is Sportacus’ greatest weakness!’” That candy boy had yelled. 

_ No _ , Robbie immediately rebuked,  _ sugar was far from that blue elf’s greatest weakness _ . Most immediately debilitating, perhaps, but not the famed Greatest Weakness. 

That blue elf was entirely too susceptible to pointy objects, given his revealing costume and propensity for flip-flopping around everywhere. Not to mention that a simple lack of sleep could weather down the elf’s energy to almost null in a meager eight hours. But the greatest weakness of all, the one Sportacus had taken to hiding the most from his young entourage:

The human yawn.

It was uncanny how Sportacus managed to just-not-be-there every time one of the kids started the motion. Robbie wouldn’t lie; on more than one occasion he had cherished the thin strike of panic in the elf’s expression before he dove a good distance away-  _ without _ any unnecessary flippity-floppity embellishments, he might add.

Only once had Robbie ever caught the elf in the midst of a yawning human, and the result had been- well.  _ Entertaining _ , to say the least. 

His mouth had enlarged to the point of ludicrousness, tongue reared back to absorb some sort of internal shock, and sharp canines visible as his lips were pulled taut, all while a hand came flying up to mask the vast cavern of his mouth: he  _ yawned _ . 

A full  _ twelve seconds of yawning _ , Robbie had recorded, and the elf probably would have gone back for seconds, if his beeping crystal hadn’t interrupted his impulse and dragged him- albeit rather sluggishly- towards the trouble.

Now, if there was any disadvantage to this, it had to be that Robbie himself wasn’t able to set off this ridiculous compulsion. No, apparently magical lineage equated to the loss of the power of the purebred human yawn. Being the laziest person in LazyTown, it would have been extremely convenient for him to affect Sportacus in such a debilitating fashion.

But things didn’t often work in his favor, so he usually had to make them. This time, it was simply a matter of manipulation. 

And Robbie knew exactly who to target first.

“Robbie Rotten! Give us our ball back- we were playing with it first!” Ah, yes. The small child with three pigtails and a nastily acute sense of pranking.

Perfect.

“What ball? Oh,  _ this _ ball?” Robbie pointed to the basketball dramatically, resisting the urge to gag at its sporty implications. “Well- I’ll tell you what. I bet you this ball that I can make you yawn. If I do, I’m keeping it. If you don’t, you can play ball all you like. Whaddaya say? Do we have a deal?”

He waved it tantalizingly in their faces a few times, and he knew he had them, hook, line, and sinker. Then all it took was a patented Robbie Rotten Yawn™ with a bit of magic at the end, and every single one of them was struggling to keep their eyes unsquinting and lips clamped together.

Amid the chorus of pleas and pitiful moans and groans that grated on the villain’s ears, the child with the pigtails remained resolutely silent. When the chatter died down and the rest of the children went off to find something else to do, she demanded of him, “How did you do that?”

A kid with a penchant for seizing a knowledgeable opportunity. That was almost…  _ promising _ .

“Well, a magician never reveals his secrets,” Robbie chanted, then pretended to scrutinize the child very closely. “However… just for you, I’ll consider telling you.  _ But _ \- you have to promise to try it out on every single person you know, for the rest of the day. And y’know what? I’ll even give you your ball back-  _ if _ you promise.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, I promise, I promise, what is it?” She was practically bouncing herself into oblivion, and Robbie tried not to reach out and hold her shoulders down to keep her still. “Well, what is it, what is it!”

“Calm down and I’ll tell you!” Robbie snapped, then took a deep breath and a very dramatic moment to regain his composure. He leaned forward, and whispered conspiratorially, “Nobody, and I mean  _ nobody _ , can resist the temptation of a yawn when someone nearby is yawning, too.”

And that was how it began. The little girl- manipulative as she was, she was still a child, and therefore incredibly pliable- spread the pervasive trick to her friends, who were soon trying it out on every person they came across.

But the original victim was the most important. The real  _ prize _ of Robbie’s day just so happened to be watching Sportacus, surrounded by a gaggle of yawning children, begin to panic uncontrollably at the compulsion to yawn, yawn, yawn, over and over and over again!

And, quite frankly, it was starting to get to Robbie as well; as soon as Sportacus’ mouth enlarged, Robbie’s chest tightened, his ears popped, and he found himself yawning extensively, ending in a satisfied smack of the lips.

...No.

No, no, no, it couldn’t be.

It would be torturous, hell itself, pure and utter agony, if-

Sportacus yawned again. Robbie couldn’t resist the temptation.

He had fallen prey to his own trap, dammit, how could he have been so blind? With each extended yawn that Sportacus gaped, Robbie heaved one to rival it. With every heated exhale from the elf’s chest, Robbie had a moan to match. One yawn prompted another, and the vicious cycle Robbie had forced Sportacus into was a cycle he would have to endure.

So that was it. Elves were susceptible to human yawns, and fae… fae were susceptible to elven yawns. What a sickening revelation- and with such _stellar_ _timing_ for a reveal, it was practically absurd that Robbie himself hadn’t expected this sort of thing to happen.

Several minutes later, Robbie rubbed his aching jaw and popped ears and screwed his eyes shut, trying to block out the awful revelation he had just had. The last of the conversation between the elf and the children he managed to understand was Sportacus imploring them not to do that anymore- and Robbie couldn’t have agreed more, but he certainly didn’t jump out of the bush and declare that, nor did Sportacus give him a look of utter irritation and perhaps just a hint of smug understanding. 

No, instead, Robbie Rotten slunk off to his lair with a few extra kinks in his back and laid back in his orange recliner and sighed. Another plan ruined, another plot foiled. And now he couldn’t even be tired enough to sleep. Damn elves and their damn weaknesses.

Next time, he’d just put some sugar in the elf’s sportscandy and call it a day.

Maybe simple weaknesses really were the simple solution.

 

* * *

 

**Author's Note:**

> Kudos buttons are entirely susceptible to tickles, hugs, muggings, cuddles, and yawns.
> 
> (why yes, go give that kudos button a great big YAWN. stellar thinking there)
> 
>  
> 
> (dO IT ANYWAY)


End file.
